How to customize date mutators in Laravel? - php

Question

I've created a few datetime fields in my database, and as is described in Laravel documentation, I can "customize which fields are automatically mutated". However there's no example showing how it can be done, nor is there any search result. What should I do to make certain fields auto mutate?
For example, I created a table called "people" in migration, one of the fields is defined as this:
class CreatePeopleTable extends Migration {
public function up(){
Schema::create("bookings",function($table){
...
$table->dateTime("birthday");
...
}
}
}
And I defined a model for "people" in models:
class People extends Eloquent{
//nothing here
}
If I refer to the birthday of a People instance, it'll be string, instead of DateTime
$one=People::find(1);
var_dump($one->birthday);
//String
The date mutator should be able to convert it directly to Carbon object, but the documentation doesn't say much about how it should be implemented.

Answer 1

In your People model just add this array:
protected $dates = array('birthday');
Laravel's Model.php internaly merges your fields with the default ones like this:
/**
* Get the attributes that should be converted to dates.
*
* #return array
*/
public function getDates()
{
$defaults = array(static::CREATED_AT, static::UPDATED_AT, static::DELETED_AT);
return array_merge($this->dates, $defaults);
}

Answer 2

According to this doc, you can use model member function getDates() to customize which fileds are automatically mutated, so the following example will return Carbon instance instead of String:
$one = People::find(1);
var_dump($one->created_at);//created_at is a field mutated by default
//Carbon, which is a subclass of Datetime
But it doesn't say clearly how to add your own fields. I found out that the getDates() method returns an array of strings:
$one = People::find(1);
echo $one->getDates();
//["created_at","modified_at"]
So what you can do is appending field names to the return value of this method:
class People extends Eloquent{
public function getDates(){
$res=parent::getDates();
array_push($res,"birthday");
return $res;
}
}
Now birthday field will be returned as a Carbon instance whenever you call it:
$one = People::find(1);
var_dump($one->birthday);
//Carbon

Answer 3

What do you mean by: automatically mutated?
If you mean mutated after being retrieved from DB use Accessors and Mutators (Laravel docs).
Add this to your model:
public function getDateAttribute( $date )
{
// modify $date as you want, example
// $date = new \Carbon\Carbon($date);
// $date->addDay()
// return (string)$date
}

Answer 4

As Sasa Tokic says, add protected $dates = array('birthday'); to your People model like so:
class People extends Eloquent{
protected $dates = array('birthday');
}
You can then use Carbon to do clever things to this value, like so:
$people->birthday->format('jS F Y')
PHP's date() function docs (http://uk3.php.net/manual/en/function.date.php) and Carbon's docs (https://github.com/briannesbitt/Carbon) will help here: